{"id":25515,"date":"2016-01-11T09:00:14","date_gmt":"2016-01-11T17:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/campaigns-kept-afloat-by-super-pacs\/"},"modified":"2016-01-11T09:00:14","modified_gmt":"2016-01-11T17:00:14","slug":"campaigns-kept-afloat-by-super-pacs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/campaigns-kept-afloat-by-super-pacs\/","title":{"rendered":"Campaigns kept afloat by super PACs"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014<\/strong> Jeb Bush\u2019s recent cancellation of advertising plans in Iowa and South Carolina was yet another cost-saving step for a down-in-the-polls presidential campaign that had already thinned its staff. If not for his flush super PAC, the Republican might be gone from the contest by now.<\/p>\n

That group, Right to Rise, has burned through half of its $103 million \u2014 which still leaves it with about as much cash as John McCain spent during the entire 2008 GOP nominating contest.<\/p>\n

In the 2016 race, money isn\u2019t buying love from voters. It is, however, buying some candidates more time.<\/p>\n

Less than a month before voting begins, the Republican field is still thick with a dozen presidential hopefuls. Super PACs are one reason why.<\/p>\n

Like Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich are leaning heavily on these outside groups to communicate with voters. Nearly 96 percent of the money for Bush, Kasich and Christie commercials has come not from their official campaigns, but from their supportive super PACs, according to advertising tracker Kantar Media\u2019s CMAG.<\/p>\n

This is the second presidential campaign since super political action committees burst onto the scene after the Supreme Court\u2019s Citizens United decision. The 2010 case made it clear that donors can contribute unlimited amounts of money to groups supporting specific candidates, so long as the candidates don\u2019t directly control the spending.<\/p>\n

That means that at any given time a wealthy admirer of a candidate can write a huge check to a super PAC to help keep that person in front of voters, through commercials and mailings. Some super PACs, including one for Carly Fiorina, even have campaign-like voter outreach efforts such as door-knocking and publicizing events that feature the candidate.<\/p>\n

Those super PAC investments work as an incentive against a candidate giving up too soon, however dim the prospects.<\/p>\n

While super PACs have dumped buckets of money into politics, they\u2019ve also helped ensure a more competitive democratic process, said Bradley Smith, a former federal elections commissioner who advocates for looser fundraising restrictions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe complaint used to be that the candidates would fold up before anyone even voted,\u201d said Smith, founder and chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics. \u201cIt\u2019s not a bad thing that\u2019s not the case anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the first presidential hopefuls to take advantage of the post-Citizens United campaign finance landscape was Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who sought the 2012 GOP nomination.<\/p>\n

Las Vegas casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson put up $20 million of his family\u2019s money to back his longtime friend Gingrich. That money paid for TV ads when the candidate couldn\u2019t afford his own, helping him stay afloat through third-to-vote South Carolina, which he won. Rick Santorum was in a similar position, benefiting from Wyoming investor Foster Friess\u2019s super PAC assistance until his candidacy took flight after a surprising Iowa win.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no question that a super PAC gives you the ability to sustain the appearance of a campaign even if you can no longer raise money,\u201d Gingrich told AP.<\/p>\n

Both eventually lost to Mitt Romney, who dominated traditional campaign fundraising and also had a big-money super PAC helping out.<\/p>\n

Gingrich said the 2016 race differs from 2012 in several crucial ways. \u201cThat was one guy with a bunch of money versus the rest of us, and now it\u2019s a bunch of guys with a bunch of money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At the same time, a celebrity businessman and political newcomer has shown that \u201cmoney may not matter as much,\u201d Gingrich said.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump\u2019s campaign only recently made its first TV ad, putting up $2 million to air it this week in Iowa and New Hampshire. He has dominated the GOP contest without spending much campaign money, and without major help from super PACs \u2014 which he has decried as \u201cdisgusting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bush, a former Florida governor, is in roughly the opposite position: His super PAC Right to Rise has pumped more than $50 million into its advertising campaign, yet he remains in the single digits in most preference polls.<\/p>\n

The group is pressing ahead. It has booked at least $24 million more in ads over the next nine weeks in 10 states, including early voting Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, CMAG shows.<\/p>\n

Over the weekend, Bush\u2019s official campaign cuts its South Carolina advertising plan by half and pulled its Iowa ad reservations altogether, an Associated Press analysis of the CMAG data found.<\/p>\n

Kasich, governor of Ohio, just began airing his first television ad on Tuesday, according to the campaign.<\/p>\n

But his super PACs have been busy for months. They\u2019ve showered New Hampshire viewers with almost $10 million worth of commercials and this week told federal regulators they\u2019re buying more ad time and distributing pro-Kasich \u2014 and anti-Christie \u2014 literature to voters.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Associated Press data journalist Justin Myers in New York contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 Jeb Bush\u2019s recent cancellation of advertising plans in Iowa and South Carolina was yet another cost-saving step for a down-in-the-polls presidential campaign that had already thinned its staff. If not for his flush super PAC, the Republican might be gone from the contest by now. That group, Right to Rise, has burned through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":25516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-25515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25515"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=25515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}